Ahead of UNSC summit, US calls all countries to sign NPT

As President Barack Obama prepares to chair a historic UN Security Council summit on nuclear non-proliferation, the US has asked all countries to join the NPT, a controversial treaty which is yet to be signed by countries like India and Pakistan.

The Obama Administration also hoped that the powerful 15-member body of the UN would endorse Washington's call for a world without nuclear weapons contained in a US-drafted resolution, which is expected to be approved unanimously at the Thursday summit in New York.

"The US position is that all countries should join the NPT, and so the resolution will address that issue," a top US Disarmament official Gary Samore told newsmen in Pittsburgh which is hosting the G-20 Summit which is also being attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The resolution is also expected to call on U.N. Member states to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would outlaw all nuclear tests. India is not a signatory to the CTBT.

Obama will be the first US President to chair a summit-level meeting of the Council in which 14 heads of state will join him.

The tone for the crucial meeting was set by Obama, who in his maiden address to the General Assembly yesterday told nations who refuse to live up to their obligations on nuclear non-proliferation must "face consequences."

The US resolution comes as a move to reinvigorate the treaty, which will be a subject of a crucial review in a conference next year.

Samore, the National Security Council Coordinator for Arms Control and Non Proliferation said the NPT is something that "we would hope that the Council would endorse". Samore said as of now, it is not illegal not to join NPT.